We originally showed FarmVille onstage with Steve Jobs for the iPhone 4 launch in 2010, and it was so difficult to get it to synchronize with the web game because of Flash. “It’s been such a long journey to get it on mobile. “I’m just happy to have FarmVille out there for players to enjoy again,” Zynga founder and chair Mark Pincus told TechCrunch. TechCrunch spoke with Ängeslevä about why she believes FarmVille 3 will have global appeal, and Pincus on what it means to see the farm world he created over a decade ago brought back to life.

Then in 2018, Zynga recruited Nordic games veteran Sonja Ängeslevä from Unity Technologies to head the development of FarmVille 3.Īlthough the original FarmVille shut down late last year when Adobe ended support for Flash, the franchise still has a massive following, according to Zynga’s president of publishing Bernard Kim, with more than 700 million installs to date, more than a fifth of the four billion downloads of Zynga’s entire game portfolio. Late 2016, Gibeau opened Zynga’s Helsinki Studios near mobile giant Supercell, maker of the hit strategy game Clash of Clans and farming simulation Hay Day. It would take the arrival of new leadership in 2016, led by CEO Frank Gibeau, to make the farm franchise come alive for a new generation of players. It wasn’t until 2014 that Zynga launched its mobile game, FarmVille 2: Country Escape, a side quest followed up by FarmVille 2: Tropic Escape two years later. From there the game went viral and became such a huge part of the cultural zeitgeist that at the height of its popularity in 2011, Zynga had over 300 million users and was generating nearly a fifth of Facebook’s revenue.īut in 2012, as mobile became the dominant platform for casual gaming, Zynga struggled to pivot. By the end of its first week, FarmVille had reached one million daily active users, according to Zynga founder Mark Pincus. This drew players back into the game and formed an addictive loop that quickly turned the simple act of tending crops into an obsession for fans, including celebrities and politicians. When it launched in 2009, the strategy simulation game was the first major game on Facebook to ping friends in the News feed. It’s been 12 years since the animals of Zynga’s FarmVille first grazed the screens of fans worldwide.

Animals farmville 2 country escape